Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/434

354 truncate at top, winged at the angles, valves papery, veiny, finely pubescent. Seeds 1/6-¼ in., globular, glabrous, black, the aril heart- shaped, white.

Parts used : — The roots, leaves and seeds.

Uses : — The Sanskrit writers describe the root as emetic, laxative, stomachic and rubefacient. Combined with other medicines, they prescribe it in rheumatism, nervous diseases, piles &c. The fried leaves are said to bring on the secretion of the menses (Dutt). The seeds are officinal ; and the root is considered by the native practitioners diaphoretic, diuretic and aperient. It is mucilaginous, and imparts this property to water, rendering it nauseous, and is thus administered in fevers. Rheede says that on the Malabar Coast the leaves are administered in pulmonic complaints. According to Ainslie, the leaves mixed with castor oil, are employed internally in rheumatism and lumbago.

The whole plant rubbed up with water is applied to rheumatism and stiffness of the limbs. The leaves, mixed with jaggery, and boiled in oil, is a good specific in sore-eyes (RHEEDE).

The whole plant, steeped in milk, is successfully applied to reduce swellings and hardened tumours (Drury).

In the Punjab, the seed is used as a tonic in fever, and a diaphoretic in rheumatism (BADEN POWELL).

The juice of the plant promotes the catamenial flow during the menstrual period. It is also a demulcent in gonorrhœa and in pulmonary affections (BADEN POWELL).

The Hindu practitioners in South India, especially those in villages, frequently employ the leaves and root of C. kelicacabum in the treatment of several diseases, including rheumatism, gravel and calculi ; but I have only seen the juice of the leaves, in about three-ounce doses, producing a good and satisfactory result in two cases of acute rheumatism. In each of these cases, the drug acted upon the bowels and produced four or five loose motions, but the relief it afforded to the pain and other symptoms of rheumatism was distinctly more than that